More Christmas Activities

Here are a couple of things I'm going to do with my kids and something I did with the Activity Day girls a couple of years ago.

Terra Cotta Trio just looks like fun. It also looks easy enough to keep the kids attention. I like the idea of them making their own little nativity. I have another one I'd like to make, but that will be for next year, when I have time and can breathe a little.

Marshmallow Snowmen. No link, but it's easy. Just use the marshmallows as paint brushes--the big ones for the snowmen and the little ones for snow. It's another quick and easy activity.

Now for the more involved activity:

This is the song: The Nativity Song.

Here are the pictures I used with the girls:

Some Christmas Activities

This is a list of some of the activities I would like to do with the kids. There is no way I'll do them all, but that's okay. With everything that is happening in our lives right now, I think keeping Christmas fairly simple is going to be the way to go.

Religious Activities (primarily):

A Week for the Christmas Story: We did this last year when the Friend came out and it was neat. I'd like to do the same thing again this year. It condenses the Christmas story into a week and even I won't forget, I hope!

Advent Calendar: What Is Christmas?

I like this advent calendar, I remember working on it a couple of years ago with Harry. There is another one I like better though.

Christmas Countdown

It's the one above. (Because I'm importing links, the spacing is a bit off, sorry.) Annika likes this one mostly because of the Baby Jesus and the animals. I'm hoping she won't like it enough to tear pieces off of it, but we'll see.

We've already made the next two things that also came from past issues of The Friend. I can't find them in the index right now, so here are the directions. Both of them are slightly harder than they look to be. I used a glue gun for both so the kids wouldn't have to wait for them to dry too much. Also because it was easier in the long run. I also used wooden craft spoons instead of erasers because I happened to have them on hand. I'm trying really hard not to run to Michaels each time I see a neat thing I want to make.

Okay, I found the link just now. It is: Christmas Workshop

That's it for now, I need to concentrate on Harry's party that is coming up, not on things further away. I also need to find a place for us to live come the 28th (Happy Birthday Ben!). So I'll post more another time.

More Christmas Books

We went back to the library this morning to get more Christmas related books. It's okay since we read 2-3 a day. They are short picture books, although I am looking for some longer ones for Harry.

Oh yeah, before I forget, if you have taken a look at my other Christmas Book List, I would not recommend Christmas Tapestry. Parts of it are really good, but the book introduces the Holocaust. I don't think my kids are ready to know about such a horrible event yet. It also talks about the stresses of being a "preacher's kid" which my kids can't relate to. So that one is off our shelf for this year.

On with the updates:
There was no snow on Christmas Eve / by Pam Muñoz Ryan ; illustrations by Dennis Nolan.

The Christmas bird / by Sallie Ketcham ; illustrated by Stacey Schuett.

Lucia and the light / Phyllis Root ; illustrated by Mary GrandPré.

One wintry night / Ruth Bell Graham ; illustrated by Richard Jesse Watson.

The Christmas cobwebs / Odds Bodkin ; illustrated by Terry Widener.

Sing Noel : Christmas carols / selected by Jane Yolen ; musical arrangements by Adam Stemple ; illus

A December to Remember?

With all of the house chaos and birthday chaos and baby chaos, school for us is going to be pared down a bit until after Christmas. That doesn't mean we won't do anything, but the style will change somewhat. For instance, you read my big list of books. That's about half of the books we'll be reading this season. The rest are at the library waiting for me to pick them up. That'll be, to an extent our reading "curriculum" for the month. We'll read other things, but that's what I'm focusing on.

For math, we'll continue as usual. Math is a skill that needs to be repeated often or the facts get lost. However, we won't just do book work. We'll double cookies, figure prices for gifts, and do some worksheets (gasp) that are Christmas themed.

Grammar and spelling will continue also. I don't want Harry to backslide because we're having too much fun!

On the other hand, we're adding in one Christmas project a day. That is a little tricky for me because I don't want to decorate the house just to put everything away in a few days, plus we don't really decorate until after Harry's birthday. But we'll muddle along. The projects are loosely broken into categories: cooking/baking, gifts, religious, fun. That doesn't mean they can't be more than one thing, but I'm trying to pull from each of these once a week.

For geography, we're doing a Christmas Around the World Theme. We're reading books that talk about Christmas in other places and maybe doing a project about it. I don't want to do too many projects, that get tiring and the amount of "stuff" gets overwhelming, but some are fine.

Gotta go, speech classes. I'll update some specifics later. If I get a chance!